


Safe

by DinoDina



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Breakfast, Developing Relationship, Domesticity, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post-Episode: s01e06 Countrycide, Pre-Relationship, the poly is coming but also not yet :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29598693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinoDina/pseuds/DinoDina
Summary: After the cannibals, Gwen doesn't go home with Owen. She rides back to Cardiff — back to Rhys — in an ambulance with Tosh.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Gwen Cooper/Toshiko Sato/Rhys Williams
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: 2021 Femslash Fest





	Safe

**Author's Note:**

> For the Torchwood Femslash Fest, technically with the prompt polyamory. And it's mostly pre-relationship, but it was really fun!

Cannibals.

In the Welsh countryside.

Fucking—fucking _cannibals_.

Gwen tries to stop shaking—there's a medic above her in the ambulance and she's stable, she's _alright_ , she's—she was almost eaten. By _cannibals_. In _Wales_. She's gone camping with Rhys! In the countryside. Where there are, apparently, cannibals now. No. They've been there for a long time. _Generations_.

_Cannibals_.

She's gone camping with Rhys, which means that he was in the countryside, and there's cannibals there, which means—which means—

Gwen tries to lurch up off the stretcher, but the ambulance is moving and she's nauseous from the painkillers and the wound in her gut. The medic puts his hands on her shoulders to calm her down, saying something generic with that deliberately blank look on his face that they teach first responders, but _he doesn't understand_.

"Rhys—"

He shushes her mid-sentence and Gwen gets a second burst of strength—he doesn't understand, she needs to call Rhys, to tell him she's okay, to make sure he's safe, to see his face… She kissed Owen today, and she meant to, she really did, she wants to apologize, because she wants Rhys _so badly_ , and Owen could never do what Rhys does, how could she even think that he could?

"Rhys—"

The medic's looking threatening, blurry at the edges, but then he's not there, and it's Tosh's bruised face that's looking down at Gwen, haltingly saying platitudes—not platitudes, support, showing Gwen that's she's holding her phone.

"What's his speed-dial?" she asks.

And Gwen wants to laugh. "One. It's one."

Why wouldn't it be the first? She's about to ask, but the phone is at Tosh's ear, and she's saying something, telling him to meet them at the hospital.

"I don't want to go there," she says, and Tosh puts the phone against her shoulder—her wrists are scrubbed raw from ropes, clean where the backs of her hands are covered in grime, it's such a stark contrast, how could they be clean when she was held like that?—and says something to the medic. Gwen can't hear, but Tosh's hand, her free hand, is still on Gwen's arm, so she twists to hold it, and that human contact is the first she's had in hours that feels safe.

Properly safe, not adrenaline-filled safety, the thrill of escaping with her life.

"Tosh."

"Here he is," she says, and holds the phone against her ear, and Rhys has never been good at keeping calm, but he's _trying_ , he sounds the way he did when he burned dinner and set off the building's fire alarm.

Gwen laughs. She feels warm, something settling in her chest; Rhys at her ear and Tosh at her side, and that damned medic finally stepping as far away as he can in the cramped back of the ambulance.

* * *

They don't let her stay overnight, but they do let Tosh stay with her, if only because Gwen threatens to leave immediately, to stumble out on her own and wait for Rhys outside, to tear out her stitches and bleed over Cardiff if they make her face this alone.

She hasn't been shot before, and it feels about the way she'd expected it to. _Unpleasant_. God, but it hurts so much, even with all these doctors here, and although they listened to her threats, Gwen doesn't think she would have been able to follow up on them, and isn't that stupid?

They let Rhys through when he comes, and he holds her other hand while they disinfect her and fix the stitches, and he looks terrified although he's trying so hard not to be. She can read everything on Rhys's face—she always could, from the moment his eyes softened when they first met and almost immediately fell in love back in university. They're a proper couple, romantic and cliché, together for years against all odds, and how wonderful is it that she has him to come home to?

"Tosh," she says when she can feel Tosh's grip loosening, and in the heat of the moment thinks she sees Rhys reach for Tosh's free hand.

She turns her head, and everything blurs—and she blinks, and _yeah_ , they've formed a circle, a neat circle that breaks when a nurse comes over and puts her hands on Tosh's shoulders.

Tosh flinches violently, her hands coming up as if to protect herself, then come down as she blushes. Gwen sees the nurse point to Tosh's wrists and the blossoming bruises on her face, and hears her imply something about Tosh's ribs.

"Don't," she says when the nurse makes Tosh stand, trying to channel her earlier stubbornness.

"Don't," Rhys repeats in a stronger voice.

"Please." Tosh turns wide, watery eyes to the nurse, and is led back to her chair by Gwen's side.

* * *

"Do you have GPS?"

Tosh's voice is subdued, not with pain or fatigue but something _else_ , and Gwen sharply looks at her. She regrets it immediately because it pulls at her stitches and surprises Rhys, who's helping her into the car's front seat, and she bites back a hiss as Tosh expectantly looks at them.

"GPS?" Rhys asks.

Tosh nods. "So I can put my address in."

It's Rhys's turn to move sharply, and Gwen reads his gaze easily, and she almost wants to burst out laughing. "We're not letting you go home alone tonight!"

"Oh." Tosh blinks.

"Of course not," Rhys quickly says. Tosh is quiet as he opens the back door. "Come on."

* * *

Tosh stays the night in the spare room with extra pillows and extra blankets, a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water on the side table, a concerned Gwen and Rhys only a wall away.

Gwen doesn't want to leave her alone for the night, but Tosh waves her away and Rhys leads her to bed. It takes Gwen a long time to fall asleep. She can't toss and turn like she always does; Rhys can't hold her as tightly as she wants him to; she wants to hold Tosh's hand again.

She doesn't.

She doesn't see Tosh until the morning, when they stumble out for the breakfast Rhys has laid out, and it feels _right_.

Rhys gives Tosh tea in one of their nice mugs, but not the fanciest one, the one that's chipped on the bottom— _we're steady and safe_ , the mug says, _but we can be vulnerable_.

Tosh wraps her hands around the mug and sits at their kitchen island.

She looks perfect there, drowning in morning light from the wide-open windows. There's a strong pane of glass between them and the world, so they're _safe_ , and the line of tension in Tosh's shoulders is from residual pain rather than discomfort. She's ever so slightly rumpled, her hair frizzy and her shirt—borrowed from Gwen—sliding off one shoulder, and now, with a hole in her side and bruises covering her arms, Gwen feels the calmest she's felt since starting at Torchwood. Because there's a hole in her side and bruises are covering her arms, but she has Rhys on one side and Tosh on the other, and she finally feels _safe_.

**Author's Note:**

> ...so this is my Countrycide Fic (TM) - thanks for reading!!


End file.
